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Natural supplements can be dangerously contaminated, or not even have the specified ingredients

By on 16 February, 2020 in Supplements
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Posted 15 February 2020

February 15, 2020 12.23am SAST

The Conversation

C. Michael White

Professor and Head of the Department of Pharmacy Practice, University of Connecticut

More than two-thirds of Americans take dietary supplements. The vast majority of consumers – 84% – are confident the products are safe and effective.

They should not be so trusting.

I’m a professor of pharmacy practice at the University of Connecticut. As described in my new article in the Annals of Pharmacotherapy, consumers take real risks if they use diet supplements not independently verified by reputable outside labs.

What are the risks?

Heavy metals, which are known to cause cancer, dementia and brittle bones, contaminate many diet supplements. One study of 121 products revealed 5% of them surpassed the safe daily consumption limit for arsenic. Two percent had excess lead, cadmium and aluminum; and 1% had too much mercury. In June 2019, … Read the rest

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The GP Show podcast – Supplements

By on 20 December, 2018 in Uncategorized
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The GP Show podcast

16 December at 17:01 · 

This photo is from a patient who came to see me during the week. They walked in and said “I am here for antidepressants”. I asked why. They said one month ago they saw a natural therapy practitioner. The natural therapy practitioner did a skim history, but ordered a raft of private lab gut and heavy metal testing and put them on all these supplements. The cost? $2000. Eventually thousands more $ over a month. The patient used their savings. The supplements caused a wide range of side effects. And ironically little attention was paid to their diet, weight, social support, movement or anything else lifestyle related. They now had quite severe reactive depression as a result, along with who-knows-what other supplement side effects that were interacting, and had lost much of their savings. The patient had a printed out book … Read the rest

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What dangers lurk in your diet supplements?

By on 25 October, 2018 in Supplements
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Posted 25 October 2018

PRETORIA NEWS / 24 October 2018 / Georgina Crouth

Between 1865 and 1906, the US experienced a “golden age” of quackery, which saw over 50000 patent medicines on the market.

Toothache was treated with cocaine (which also helped for brainpower, endurance and “throat troubles”); fussy babies were calmed with opiates; paleness ameliorated with “pink pills”, freckles were removed with mercury; and “women’s ailments” were relieved with a punchy mix of cannabis and chloroform.

Drugs were bought and sold like any other consumer goods. These often contained dangerous, addictive and misidentified ingredients.

There was no legal or ethical requirement to disclose the contents, nor to list warnings about misuse.

… Read the rest
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Worshiping the False Idols of Wellness

By on 22 October, 2018 in Supplements
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Posted 22 October 2018

Charcoal, “toxins” and other forms of nonsense are the backbone of the wellness-industrial complex.

By Jen Gunter New York Times 

Before we go further, I’d like to clear something up: Wellness is not the same as medicine.

Medicine is the science of reducing death and disease, and increasing long and healthy lives.

Wellness used to mean a blend of health and happiness. Something that made you feel good or brought joy and was not medically harmful — perhaps a massage or a walk along the beach. But it has become a false antidote to the fear of modern life and death.

The wellness industry takes medical terminology, such as “inflammation” or “free radicals,” and levigates itto the point of incomprehension. The resulting product is a D.I.Y. medicine for longevity that comes with a confidence that science can only aspire to achieve.

Let’s take

… Read the rest
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Fish oil supplementation not supported in new meta-analysis

By on 27 June, 2018 in Fish oil
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Posted 27 June 2018

A meta-analysis of 10 randomized controlled trials involving 77,917 individuals found no evidence that a mean of 4.4 years of supplementation with marine-derived omega-3 fatty acids was effective in preventing fatal or nonfatal coronary heart disease, strokes, or the need for procedures to restore circulation. The supplementation was also ineffective in preventing these cardiovascular outcomes in subgroups of individuals at elevated risk.

Reference: Aung T. Associations of omega-3 fatty acid supplement use with cardiovascular disease risks. JAMA Cardiology 3:225-234, 2018

The findings do not support the conclusion of a 2017 science advisory from the American Heart Association which suggested that fish oil supplementation is reasonable treatment for people with coronary heart disease but was based on only one trial of patients with heart failure. Both the 2017 science advisory and the new meta-analysis agreed that there is no evidence of benefit from fish oil supplementation … Read the rest

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Female libido booster Addyi shows up in supplements

By on 26 April, 2017 in Supplements
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Posted 26 April 2017

Following in the footsteps of Viagra, female libido booster Addyi shows up in supplements

By Megan Thielking @meggophone April 19, 2017

Following in the footsteps of Viagra, female libido booster Addyi shows up in supplements

Following in the footsteps of its predecessor Viagra, the female libido drug Addyi has snuck into over-the-counter supplements that tout their ability to “naturally” enhance sexual desire.

The Food and Drug Administration announced a recall Wednesday of two supplements marketed to boost women’s sex drive. The supplements Zrect and LabidaMAX – both manufactured by Organic Herbal Supply – actually contained flibanserin, a medication approved by the FDA in late 2015 to treat hypoactive sexual desire disorder in women. It’s the first time federal officials have recalled a product contaminated with the drug.

… Read the rest
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Studies Show Little Benefit in Supplements Personal Health

By on 17 November, 2016 in Supplements
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Posted 17 November 2016

This article by Jane E. Brody, published in the New York Times, points out that Americans “spend more than $30 billion a year on dietary supplements – vitamins, minerals and herbal products, among others – many of which are unnecessary or of doubtful benefit to those taking them. That comes to about $100 a year for every man, woman and child for substances that are often of questionable value”.

In an  editorial entitled “The Supplement Paradox: Negligible Benefits, Robust Consumption” accompanying the new report, Dr. Pieter A. Cohen, of Cambridge Health Alliance and Somerville Hospital Primary Care in Massachusetts, pointed out that “supplements are essential to treat vitamin and mineral deficiencies” and that certain combinations of nutrients can help some medical conditions, like age-related macular degeneration. He added, however, “for the majority of adults, supplements likely provide little, if any, benefit.”

Read the article on … Read the rest

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Supplements and Safety

By on 21 January, 2016 in Supplements
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Posted 21 January 2016

The New York Times has published an article written by Anahad O’Connor, titled, ‘Supplements and Safety’ Explores What’s in Your Supplements, asking the question: do you know what is in your supplements, and in particular, what is in your fish oil?

A new documentary, “Supplements and Safety,” pulls back the curtain on some of America’s most popular supplements, and it suggests that many people who buy them may not be getting what they are paying for. The program, airing on the PBS investigative series “Frontline” on Tuesday night, is a collaboration between “Frontline,” The New York Times and The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

The program examines the widespread use of potent vitamins, herbs, fish oil and fat-burning supplements. Millions of Americans use these products safely every year. But researchers have found that in many cases they can cause unexpected side effects. And because dietary … Read the rest

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Enough Is Enough: Stop Wasting Money on Vitamin and Mineral Supplements

By on 13 January, 2016 in Solal, Supplements
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Posted 13 January 2016

This editorial published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, and titled, Enough Is Enough: Stop Wasting Money on Vitamin and Mineral Supplements, makes the point that studies show that there is  no clear evidence of a beneficial effect of supplements on all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, or cancer, that a study conducted for 12 years, found no differences between the multivitamin and placebo groups in overall cognitive performance or verbal memory, and a study evaluating the potential benefits of a high-dose, 28-component multivitamin supplement with a previous heart attack, found that there was no significant difference in recurrent cardiovascular events with multivitamins compared with placebo.

Other reviews and guidelines that have appraised the role of vitamin and mineral supplements in primary or secondary prevention of chronic disease have consistently found null results or possible harms. Evidence involving tens of thousands of people randomly assigned in many clinical
… Read the rest

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